{"id":1301956,"date":"2023-10-30T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=621374"},"modified":"2023-10-30T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T08:00:00","slug":"food-justice-advocates-didnt-set-out-to-save-the-climate-their-solutions-are-doing-it-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/10\/30\/food-justice-advocates-didnt-set-out-to-save-the-climate-their-solutions-are-doing-it-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"Food justice advocates didn\u2019t set out to save the climate. Their solutions are doing it anyway."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This story is published in partnership with <\/em>Earth in Color<\/em><\/a>, a platform exploring the intersections of Blackness and Greenness. It is part of the <\/em>Eatin\u2019 Good<\/em><\/a> collection \u2014 focused on climate-friendly eating, foodways of the African diaspora, food justice, and sustainable agricultural practices and community-generated initiatives grown out of New York.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Imagine a bountiful plot of land, fences overgrown and overflowing with life: milkweed, mugwort, chicory, goldenrod, echinacea, yarrow, and raspberry bushes sprinkled among ripening apple, pear, and peach trees. Herbs like lemon balm, dill, mint, and oregano are boundless. There\u2019s a colorful spread of fat melons, strawberries, cucumbers, butternut squash, beets, lettuce, kale, and tomatoes. There\u2019s a blueberry bush, though it\u2019s been stripped bare \u2014 food for the birds and bugs. The groundhogs and other small creatures \u2014 pesky as they may be \u2014 spend their days trudging lazily through the foliage. This place takes up about as much space as a smaller brownstone apartment \u2014 but it\u2019s a jungle oasis. At least that\u2019s the language that artist, environmental activist, and land steward Nkoula Badila uses to describe the ecological diversity of her backyard urban garden in Hudson, New York. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy childhood has definitely taught me to find my peace in nature,\u201d Badila said. Her family spent a lot of time visiting and volunteering at local urban farms and gardens when she was growing up. \u201cI feel like just having that influence and lifestyle around was very grounding.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Badila\u2019s backyard garden is also something else\u2014a space to preserve Black food traditions and cultivate community. \u201cWe are introducing a lot of these [gardening and farming methods] that are also things that our ancestors did,\u201d Badila said. \u201cWe\u2019re reintroducing those things and reclaiming how diverse, brilliant, and expansive our ancestors were.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you envision agriculture in the United States, you probably don\u2019t picture spaces like Badila\u2019s. And yet, sprouting in small downtown backyards or amidst the metal and concrete of many U.S. urban centers are surprisingly abundant growing spaces \u2014 community farms and backyard gardens, many of them Black-owned. Those spaces serve dual purposes as a local solution to food insecurity and a source of community cultivation in historically undervalued, underinvested, and abandoned areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Planting in Nkoula Badila\u2019s backyard garden in Hudson, New York.\n Courtesy Nkoula Badila<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These localized food systems find their roots in the food justice<\/a> and community gardening movements of the \u201960s and \u201970s. In New York City, for example, urban farms emerged as one form of resistance and a safe haven in the face of police brutality and injustice. Urban farms persist today as a source of connection to culture and fresh, healthy produce. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These urban growing spaces are also increasingly being recognized as a solution to another pressing issue \u2014 climate change. \u201cThere are so many benefits of urban agriculture when it comes to mitigating climate change<\/a>,\u201d said Francine Miller, senior staff attorney and faculty member at the Vermont School of Law\u2019s Center for Agriculture and Food Systems. \u201cPeople need access to green space and they need access to local food. I think there are particular needs that are met in urban environments with more urban farming; the more access the better.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to continued injustices, today many Black land stewards are building on a history of urban farming as a source of community care and local food production. They are continuing to invest in these spaces by passing their tools and experiences onto the next generation. And while many of them do not consider themselves climate activists, this same work offers a roadmap toward climate mitigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Urban gardens as food justice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Black foodways<\/a> in this country have historically been hit twofold through exclusion from agribusiness and unequal access to fresh produce at home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2021 analysis<\/a> found that approximately one out of every five Black households in the US is located in a food desert\u2014an area without adequate access to grocery stores or farmers markets. Some advocates prefer the term food apartheid<\/a> to account for the racialized and intentionally discriminatory nature of food insecurity, describing a lack of access to nutritious food as a deliberate and systematic action against Black America. Combined with a history of Black farm loss<\/a>, these disparities have created an environment where many Black and brown people grow up with very little connection to or say over the food they eat.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept of food justice as a counter to this imbalance was formalized during the 1962 Greenwood Food Blockade<\/a>. That year, Black sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta were cut off from the Federal Surplus Commodities Food Program<\/a>, which already-struggling farmers relied on for food assistance in the winter months. Activists, including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), fought back against what they saw as retaliation from the all-white county Board of Supervisors against civil rights action in the area. The group established a food distribution program for affected farmers and ultimately petitioned the federal government to intervene. The fight for food access in both rural and urban America continued to evolve with initiatives like the Black Panther Party\u2019s famous Free Breakfast for Children Program<\/a>, established in 1969 to ensure that poor children had access to healthy food and to pressure local and national governments to improve their food access programs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the movement\u2019s inception, food justice initiatives have also included spaces where Black communities steward their own land to provide opportunities the system gave them no access to. Some of the most famous examples are the Ron Finley Project<\/a> in Los Angeles, California, Dreaming Out Loud<\/a> in Washington, D.C., and Soul Fire Farm<\/a> in Grafton, New York. Those organizations have meshed sustainable and regenerative land practices with urban infrastructure to provide healthy, fresh produce to under-resourced and underfed, predominantly Black communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A view of Soul Fire Farm in Petersburg, New York, taken in 2020.\n Angela Weiss \/ AFP<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

New York City, in particular, has served as a longstanding microcosm for urban health issues<\/a> and fights for environmental justice<\/a>, green space<\/a>, and food access. From Hudson to Brooklyn, and from the South Bronx to East New York, Black land stewards have developed many of the city\u2019s gardening spaces as a reaction to urban renewal, White flight, food apartheid, and larger government disinvestment in Black and brown neighborhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although food insecurity across New York state sits just below the national average, approximately 20 percent of Black households<\/a> in the state can be considered food insecure, compared to 5 percent of white households. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many New York community gardens sprouted up<\/a> in the \u201860s and \u201870s. At the time, in well-known neighborhoods like Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, riots<\/a> against police brutality and long histories of injustice and exclusion in the boroughs set a tone for Black resistance. The crack epidemic was leaving many listless and on the street. In most cases, community gardens were a peaceful respite from the violence, and they were built in old churches and parking lots as a form of mutual aid, nature access, and community resilience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An overlooked climate solution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I was young, I never thought of farming \u2014 because I grew up in the \u201860s, when farming was still looked back on as slave work,\u201d explained Karen Washington, who is now an urban farming advocate, co-founder of the Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners<\/a> (BUGS) Conference, and co-owner of Rise and Root Farm<\/a> in Chester, New York. A former city girl and New York native, Washington got involved in the community gardening movement in the 1970s after learning about the health benefits of locally grown food. People she spoke to who had grown up farming and gardening \u201cwould talk about the food, how good it was, how they got everything from the farm or from the garden, how they were never sick a day, and we would laugh together about the taste of good fresh food.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Washington, getting involved in community gardening opened her eyes to the many injustices the movement was created to address. \u201cWe live in the United States. Why is there hunger and poverty? Why do Black folks not have access to healthy food?\u201d she wondered. \u201cOnce I got involved in the movement \u2014 especially in the Bronx, helping communities turn empty lots into community gardens \u2014 I started questioning people with power and privilege, looking at the full system and holding them accountable for the haves and the have-nots.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early days of the community garden movement in New York City, there were over 15,000 vacant or abandoned lots, according to Washington. Efforts to convert these empty spaces into green spaces served as a growing form of resistance for areas that were falling into disrepair. Organizations like the Green Guerillas used seed bombs<\/a> to beautify the lots, community leaders built gardens to feed the people in their neighborhoods, and individuals like then-64-year-old Hattie Carthan<\/a> \u2014 founder of the Bed-Stuy Neighborhood Tree Corps \u2014 contributed to the planting of the over 1,500 trees that now provide Brooklyn with shade and help combat climate-caused extreme heat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just about food,\u201d Washington said. \u201cDuring this time, I became a community organizer working on food, housing, drug issues, education issues \u2026 I found my voice in activism through <\/em>the food justice movement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFood justice is a verb,\u201d explained Yonnette Fleming, president of the Hattie Carthan Community Garden and Farmers Market<\/a>. \u201cWe do it every day with our Black bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In 2009, young people planted vegetables at the Hattie Carthan Community Garden in preparation for a farmers market-style sale in Brooklyn. Chris Hondros\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to Fleming, the Hattie Carthan Community Garden \u2014 created as a tribute to Carthan\u2019s tree activism \u2014 is one of the largest growing spaces to come out of the New York community gardening movement. Comprising an urban healing farm, a farmers market, and a series of ancestral apothecaries, the organization has nearly quadrupled its land holdings since Fleming<\/a> took over in 2009. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That year, the garden crew converted a local toxic oil dump site into what is now the garden market. It\u2019s just one example of yet another impact urban gardens and farms have on the historically disinvested neighborhoods they serve \u2014 to build resilience against climate change. While many standard agricultural practices in rural America exacerbate carbon<\/a> and methane emissions, studies<\/a> show that many urban farming spaces are a climate boon<\/a> to the communities they serve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[Urban agriculture helps with] stormwater runoff mitigation<\/a>, reducing heat in cities due to the heat island effect<\/a>, air filtration, carbon sequestration<\/a>, mitigating flooding<\/a>, attracting pollinators, mitigating against drought conditions through rainwater capture, improving soil quality \u2026 \u201d Miller explained. An emphasis on local food systems also reduces emissions<\/a> associated with extensive food transport\u2014and these localized systems have proven to be more nimble and responsive to shocks<\/a> than the longer, globalized supply chains we\u2019ve come to rely on.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With New York City experiencing increasingly severe climate impacts, from wildfire smoke<\/a> to extreme flooding<\/a>, the natural benefits of urban gardens offer a small-scale solution for affected residents. While urban gardens alone will not prevent climate disasters, they do provide some mitigation for things like air pollution and extreme heat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miller added that the beautification effects of urban gardens and green space also encourage community members to take better care of the land by reducing litter and creating a shared investment in the community. The vast urban grower community didn\u2019t arise under the banner of climate advocacy, but those benefits are emerging from the fight for healthy food and beautiful outdoor spaces in New York\u2019s historically disinvested and food-insecure boroughs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing into the future<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s estimated that there are about 550 community gardens and over 800 gardens held in land trusts or public housing developments across New York City<\/a> today. Alongside them, there are almost 750 garden schools working to expand the history and knowledge of food cultivation and intentional urban land practice to the next generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are truly empowering the people from our geographies \u2014 of all ages \u2014 to enter back into right relationship with the earth,\u201d Fleming said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2010, Fleming and Washington, along with several other food justice organizers, founded Farm School NYC<\/a>. This hub for education, with an eye toward Black and Brown growers, draws on the ancestral and traditional expertise of New York\u2019s residents to teach community members how to create their own localized food systems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francine Miller was a member of the Farm School NYC\u2019s inaugural class in 2010. Miller went on to teach at the school for a time and emphasized the city\u2019s cultural and ancestral diversity as a foundation of the program\u2019s agricultural success\u2014immigrant populations and multi-generational land stewards have come together to build a resource for intentional urban agricultural practice through this school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Farm School is this amazing city-wide, BIPOC-led initiative that really tries to reach deep into Black and Brown communities to support their agricultural leadership,\u201d Miller said. \u201cWhat I think is special about this is there is truly an ecosystem of Black-led organizations and training opportunities; there is so much potential support for Black farmers in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A harvest from Nkoula Badila\u2019s garden.\n Courtesy Nkoula Badila<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Among this next generation of Black growers are people like Nkoula Badila<\/a> \u2014 who has translated the successful community garden formula into spaces of all kinds, including home and backyard gardens, as a continuation of the battle for food, green space, and sustainable agriculture practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June 2020, Badila created her garden Eden as a space to cultivate mindfulness, community interaction, and mental well-being during the stress of COVID-19 lockdowns and Black Lives Matter protests. Drawing from the same principles and goals of the community garden movement of the past, and spurred by similar moments of social unrest and health crises, Badila has expanded her backyard safe haven into a resource and community connector through Grow Black Hudson<\/a>, an informal organization that provides educational resources, workshops, and supplies to others in her community to replicate what she\u2019s built in her own backyard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is not just about food, but about all the ways that we can grow as a people,\u201d Badila said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And although neither Badila, Washington, or Fleming call themselves climate activists, the spaces they are creating for Black people to celebrate their roots and nourish their communities are also propagating the types of physical green spaces that have the potential to reduce climate impacts in some of New York\u2019s frontline regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s so important to have a relationship to land and to food,\u201d Washington said. \u201cThat’s where our power is. Look at the color of your skin. Your skin is soil.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Grist<\/a> with the headline Food justice advocates didn’t set out to save the climate. Their solutions are doing it anyway.<\/a> on Oct 30, 2023.<\/p>\n

This post was originally published on Grist<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How New York’s rich history of urban gardening connects food justice and climate mitigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":284,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13813],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301956"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1301956"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1303744,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301956\/revisions\/1303744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1301956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1301956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1301956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}